bravery is relative
by jaime-lannisters
Summary: At the end of the day, you strip away the nonsense and all you have left is the truth. You can deny it or accept it, but you can't change it. That's the thing about truth; it's absolute. There is no in between. / daphne greengrass remembers.


**written for**: quidditch league fanfiction competition round 7 — sink that ship

**prompts**: countryside, every cloud has a silver lining, "what are you smiling about?", fleur delacour

**warnings/notes**: swearing, slight deviance from canon. one shot.

**thanks**: reppad (reppad98), my dearest appleby arrows captain, who managed to physically publish this for me when i could not/was battling the laws of time/physics/wifi/school proxy servers. über thanks to reppad. also thanks to nic (symphonies of you) for listening to me for this.

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.

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**daphne/blaise**

_you are my fundamental truth_

x

you're just a boy

she's just a girl

you'll break her heart

she'll wreck your world

_chin up kid_—**forever the sickest kids**

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Do you ever wonder if you might be mad?

Just as all who experience war are, I am haunted by memories of days gone by. Half-formed sentences and hazy features, silhouetted fight scenes and the endless, creeping fear that struck deep in our hearts whenever it came time to lie.

And lie we did; oh, Salazar, how we lied.

Alecto — remember her? Amycus was vile, but Alecto was halfway creative with her punishments and inexhaustible with her cruelty — used to ask us if things were better under the Dark Lord's rule, and we all said yes because we didn't want to die.

I'm still not sure if that made us brave or cowards.

People say that every cloud has a silver lining; I'd be hard-pressed to find one, but I'd probably pick you. You're not much of a silver lining, but you kept me halfway sane, and that's got to count for something.

Remember in third year, when Draco got mauled by the hippogriff? He was being a right twat so no wonder the hippogriff lashed out, but I stayed by his bed in the Hospital Wing every afternoon for five days. I missed that Draco in the years to come. I mean, he was self-entitled and a bit of a prat but he was just a kid and he still believed in his right to be happy back then. Seventh year, not so much.

When I think of Seventh Year, I think of us. Of you, of me, of Millie and Theo and Draco. Even of Tracey and Pansy and Vincent and Gregory. We were so alone. Do you remember that? The whole school hated us because of the tie we wore around our necks; they assumed that because we were Slytherin, we supported Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

A lot of the house was for it — or at least, obedient children in families that supported his cause — but not all. We weren't. For Merlin's sake, even Draco wasn't. Vincent was the most fervent supporter in our crowd, and look how _that_ turned out for him; destroyed by Fiendfyre from _his own wand_, of all things. The boy always was an idiot.

Vincent, and to an extent, Gregory, Pansy and Tracey supported Voldemort, but we didn't. You, me, Millie, Theo and Draco. Draco most of all, even as he bore the mark on his skin.

It was us five against the world, and I've counted the odds and analysed the outcome in every way possible and there's no version of this where we don't lose.

We won our freedom, not that anyone believes us to be anything other than turncloaks. Have you ever tried to convince someone that Slytherin isn't synonymous with bad person or pureblood supremacist? I wouldn't bother, if I were you. It's never worked for me, and I was the queen of our people back then, the one who could always manipulate the situation.

I guess that's just another thing I lost in the war. Not the ability to manipulate, but the belief in myself and my actions. Until that time in the battle — you know the one I mean, with the Delacour girl — I'd never doubted myself. Now I can't stop.

Fourth year springs to mind, at the mentioning of the Delacour girl. Fleur Delacour, that was her name. As if it doesn't haunt me every day.

She was the Beauxbatons champion and part Veela and you never stared at her once. I kept waiting for you to do it, to sneak a glance or coolly appraise her, but no. Not once. I wish you had. It'd have made things easier in the long run.

Half of the males in the castle were infatuated with her; remember Theo? I thought Millie was going to gouge his eyes out one of those days.

You asked me to the Yule Ball that year, and you looked so beautiful that it made me feel beautiful. I had to have been, to be with you that night. You were obsidian that night, obsidian and onyx and the sleek shadows of the night, and you were glorious in your darkness.

We made such a striking contrast; me, with my blonde hair and ivory skin and blue eyes, and you, with your cacao skin and black locks and dark eyes. The only things we had in common were our beauty and our coldness.

We didn't know how beautiful it was back then, how beautiful it was to be able to feel. We wasted our lives and only realised it when we were locked in our own hell.

We should have sung and sprinted and done more than just dance beneath the moonlight. It was a fairytale, most likely the fantasy of many a teenage girl, but not me. I want more. Who cares about the kiss under the stars if you don't know the person behind the lips?

I thought I knew you, but I didn't, not until Seventh Year. To be fair, I don't think you knew yourself either.

You marked my skin with bites and bruises, and I scratched my feelings into the skin of your back. It was the start of Seventh Year and you were the constant factor, because you had always been my personal enigma and that hadn't changed. Still hasn't, really. You're still my favourite puzzle to solve and riddle to unravel, even if I don't have the right anymore.

When I was twelve, I visited Millie's countryside estate. She hadn't been very impressed with it, but I was. It was so very modern, compared to the centuries-old mansion I grew up in. I guess the awe must have shown on my face because she told me that it was just a house. I just assumed that she didn't understand what she had — I was a frightful twit during second year, oh Merlin — but I was wrong. She understood it at twelve better than most people ever will. It's just a house. At the end of the day, you strip away the nonsense and all you have left is the truth. You can deny it or accept it, but you can't change it. That's the thing about truth; it's absolute. It is, or it isn't. It's a house, or it's not. I love you, or I don't. There is no in between.

For the record, it's the former. It's just a house, and I love you. I'm only telling you this, of course, because there's nothing to be done about it. I can't change it and neither can you, so you may as well know the truth that you're part of.

The thing is, loving you is my fundamental truth. I don't know why, I certainly don't approve and to a certain extent, I wish I didn't but it is what it is.

I remember being seventeen, just sitting in the common room as the screams of the tortured filled our ears and we tried to move past it.

"I hate Carrow so fucking much," Millie ground out, practically hissing in her rage. Another tearful scream rang out through the dungeons, and her fists clenched, knuckles turning white. Well, whiter.

"Join the club," you said sardonically, and Draco nodded.

"We're basically already a club," I pointed out. "There's five of us who basically defy everything expected of us — supporting the Dark Lord, hating muggles... We don't subscribe to the expectations."

Then you fucking _grinned_, and it was the most shocking thing ever, especially as the screams echoed throughout our walls.

"What are you smiling about?" Millicent demanded, pushing you in a slightly affronted manner.

You glanced at me, and I fell a little in love right there. "Daph over here just proclaimed us a rebel group," you said.

Theo shook his head; "no, a group of rebels. A rebel group works together to rebel, and they know each other beyond belief and—"

"Why don't we?" Draco interrupted suddenly. At Theo's questioning look, he expanded, "know each other that well, I mean." He looked at us all. "We're all we've got anymore. We're the only ones with a shot of understanding what it's been like for each other. My mother— she loves me but she _doesn't get it_, and she _can't_ and—" he cut himself off, before taking a breath. "Who better than us to reveal yourself to?"

We spent that night exploring every facet of each other and as a five, we were closer for it.

Well, I thought we were, anyway. It's funny, the things you remember when they're not relevant anymore. I think they're relevant, because you're always going to be relevant to me in my mind, but you're not around anymore so I guess most people would tell me that it's pathetic that I can still remember your favourite number, the colour of the scarf you wore all the time when we were thirteen and your favourite time of day.

(42, grey and two am, when the world is asleep and it feels like you're the only one on earth and the world is turning just for you.)

Some days, I'd like to think that I changed you, that I helped you. That you changed because of knowing me. I'd like to think I mattered, that I was worth something, because you're still the fundamental truth of my existence and it'd be slightly (_completely, utterly_) pathetic if I didn't affect you at all.

I promised that I'd never weep over you, but then the battle—

I just can't forget it. It's seared into my mind in the worst of ways.

Theo and Millie don't get it, they don't understand why we had to end. Draco does. He knows.

Because the truth is, Blaise, you're my defining feature, as hopelessly un-empowering as that sounds, and as a whole, I'm a better person for loving you.

_You were going to let her die for me._

I'm not good for you, okay? I remember being fifteen years old, and you telling me how your mother got her fortune, and how you never wanted to be the cause of anyone's death, how you'd always do what you could; it's why you wanted to become a fucking healer, for Merlin's sake.

But then I'm in danger and that all flies out the window and that is not acceptable.

She was an elfin thing, with her silvery-golden beauty and her nimble movements, but she was more than that too. I don't know if you saw the determination in her eyes and the spirit that kept her fighting, but I did. I'd guess you didn't, actually. I don't think anyone would be capable of condemning to death that sort of pure will to live.

And then I couldn't see anything because Macnair was giving me the fight of my life but _you could_. You saw Alecto striding towards us, screaming my name, and you saw Fleur Delacour, the shining girl— you saw her step backwards in between Alecto and I and _you didn't say a thing_.

You ran behind and you grasped my shoulder and you just shoved me backwards into the chaos that was safer than the one I'd just been in. I was sprawled on the ground, wincing, and I didn't get it. I didn't understand why you were shoving me. And then I heard a cry of shock, a gleeful grunt and someone screaming out her name.

I still see her fall every day. Each night, when I sit on the windowsill and imagine a different version of us where we could be happy. Each day, when the sun's rays touch my skin. Every moment that I drift into a daydream.

Do you ever wonder if you might be mad? I do. Every day.

She's imprinted on my mind like my own personal doom, and so is your expression when she hit the floor.

I turned, see, because I couldn't watch another comrade-at-arms fall, not one who'd been fighting so close to me, and I turned to look at you because you've always been my safety net. Your face was a thousand things, a kaleidoscope of the human condition. You were heartbroken, aghast, determined and resolute. Distress marred your features just as much as palpable relief accentuated them. Most of all, though, I remember that shame was written on your face for all the world to see; the kind of guilt that gets scratched in so it will leave scars, the kind of guilt that will bleed into you and never leave.

I understood what you did then, and I understood what I did, too. You let her die — _you should have pulled her away because she was innocent and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and somebody loved her beyond belief and you should have saved her, not me_ — and I turned you into that.

I'm a bad person because I still feel guiltier over the fact that you did that thing for me than I am that she died, and at the end of the day, no matter what you did in that battle, you are an infinitely better person than I am because you still bear her weight on your shoulders like a battle scar, like a wound.

You're just a boy and I'm just a girl and you may be my defining feature but I'm not going to let you sacrifice yours because of me.

Of course, it hurts everyday. Of course I miss the sound of your laughter, the feeling of your breath tickling the skin behind my ear, the way your fingers skitter across my skin as if you're an archaeologist and I'm a precious classical vase to touch with both trepidation and adoration.

We were so _real_, you know? That's what I miss the most. I felt more with you in those seven years than any other time in my life, and they're the memories that beckon me into sleep every night and leave me with wet cheeks each morning.

I miss you more than I have words to say, but I love you even more than that, so I know I can't ever change my mind. You're my mantra, and as the memories of those seven glorious years run in my head alongside those moments where you nearly let her die, I am kept strong. I'll always love you but I know I can't have you, that you are a glory that I don't have the right to bask in anymore.

I still can't tell if I'm brave or if I'm a coward.

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**a/n.** please review, it's mucho appreciated, and please don't favourite without reviewing.


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